Perhaps like me, it makes you want to do something to help them. Maybe something more than just donating £10 (or less, you cheapskate) online? Well, how about setting up a charity gig?
(Haha, I just read that back and realised how much it rings like a bad advert...)
Anyway, I'm here to help you raise money and enjoy music (and meet bands, the best part of organising this kind of thing, I suspect. Other than the rewarding feeling of doing something good of course). So a while back I was determined to set up a charity gig for the Amnesty International Youth Group I used to run. That dream died fast. Mainly due to my laziness but whatever. Anyway, when I was all about that I got plenty of good advice on how to go about setting up a live musical event from Rob Alderman of the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang nights. The back and forth emails between us are below, no point in letting that all this knowledge go to waste, huh?
Dear Rob,
My name is Zita[....]and I run the Amnesty International Youth Group at [my school]. We want to hold a benefit concert in aid of Amnesty. I love a lot of the amazing bands/artists you've had at your KKBB nights such as:
New Cassettes
Lightspeed Champion
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Johnny Foreigner
Pete and the Pirates
and The Holloways (even though they haven't performed yet)
and I would greatly appreciate it if you could give me some information on how to go about booking these bands and how much it would cost?
Thank you very much for your time, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Hi Zita,
Sounds like a cool idea!
With all of the bands you listed (except New Cassettes), they have an agent which is the person you'll need to contact about gigs. Most agent details (usually an e-mail address) can be found on the myspace or website of the band. There are 3 or 4 main agencies - Primary, WMA, ITB and Coda but there are others out there too.
So, contact the agent who looks after the band. They'll usually want details of the gig (where it is, what date, what capacity the venue is etc etc) so I'd put this in the first e-mail to stop e-mails going back and forth. When you first e-mail them, I wouldn't mention any money, it's best first to see if the band are available. Also, do a bit of research into the band you're booking (i.e. do they already have a gig on the date you want them? Will they suit your target audience?). This all helps when contacting the agent. To warn you, agents can be quite blunt. They obviously get hundereds of e-mails every day asking for bookings so often reply with a quick yes or no and quick explanation (sometimes not even that much). Also, it's probably worth writing out a list of a good 20 bands and split them into first choice bands, 2nd choice etc. I'd e-mail maybe 3 or 4 in the first instance as not all agents will reply...you don't want to throw all your eggs in one basket and wait to hear back when a reply may not be forthcoming.
Once you've e-mailed, if they e-mail back (and the band are available), they'll ask for an offer. As you're not a "regular customer" to them, this may be a slightly higher price than other promoters that often use them to book bands. It's difficult to judge the price of a band these days as cost has gone up. It's difficult for me to say what you could offer without knowing your budget so maybe if you e-mail through your budget and the bands you're thinking about, I can give you an idea of where to aim for.
Once the offer has gone back, if they accept, you'll then go through the stages of having a contract which will need signing and returning. Also, by law, you'll need to fill out a Terms of Business with the company you're booking through as, legally, they must do this to deal with you (this will all be sent to you). They often ask for 50% of the fee to be paid as a deposit also.
When thinking about your budget, don't forget to add everything in. Most bands charge VAT and will want a rider (food and drink), which, on average, can cost about £50-£100, depending what they're asking for. Add sound equipment, sound man, lights, staging etc to that just to make sure you're budget can cover the gig.
Bands also will send through a tech spec with their rider. This details what sound equipment they expect to use when playing. They can be quite particular about what sound equipment they use so, if you plan to book a bigish band, make sure you're not using cheap equipment because otherwise the band can refuse to play or you will have to hire the equipment they request (we learnt this the hard way) and you can lose the deposit as it is your responsibility as a promoter to make sure the venue meets the requirements in the contract.
Sorry for the essay. I don't mean to bombard you! Just a lot more than you realise to think about when you book a band of certain level.
I hope it is of some help.
Feel free to e-mail me on this address again for help. It's good to see people getting up and doing something cool for the music scene around these parts!
Good luck!
Rob
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